Central bank currency - from hand held vice to handheld device?

Is it possible to separate banking from payments? Is it possible to ask your employer to pay you thousands of dollars every two weeks by counting out twenty dollar bills into your hands, like a foreign exchange teller?

The banking system has evolved in an interesting if not head-scratching manner. Prior to the creation of the Bank of Canada, commercial bank reserves were composed of these banks' paid-up capital as well as large denomination Dominion bank notes stored in a vault (used exclusively for settlement) and gold. And commercial-bank-issued banknotes circulated alongside smaller denomination Dominion notes for the public.

In 1935, following the creation of Canada's central bank, these gold and dominion notes were effectively digitized - handed over to the central bank to be converted into 'reserves' which were a liability on the Bank of Canada's balance sheet. And the wheels were set in motion to no longer allow commercial banks to distribute their own currency - which is to say, these banknotes were effectively digitized.

Fast forward 85 years later. Bank notes remain a persistent reminder of fiat monetary hegemony, a representative product that at once seems necessary and yet anachronistic. Central banks creating art on pieces of paper and polymer? Contaminated, and bacteria-laden paper that we handle to purchase food we eat and then leave in our warm pockets all day. Paper that is counterfeited regularly, and millions spent in the 'arms race' to maintain confidence in its legitimacy. And existing in a financial world where de-materialization (and automation) are viewed as prima facie signs of operational progress, notably since the literal paperwork crisis on Wall Street in the 1960s.

And so I stand here with my pay cheque. In the form of over one hundred $20 bills, and no way to alleviate the paperwork crisis that has been downloaded to me and others who want to use the country's currency to pay for things. In the meantime, pockets stuffed with bank notes, we watch payment innovations arising all around us, and we are welcome to partake in them at any moment...if only we transfer, to commercial banks, ownership of that most precious of assets weighing us down - our central bank money.